I Don’t Know Anyone By That Season Finale! – Eromanga Sensei Review

June 28, 2017

My last post covered from episode 7 back in a fun posting where everything kinda just came up and got very fun. Plenty has happened including a good amount of plot and character development. For something that’s a pseudo-harem design this show has managed to make a compelling case for many of the female potential to become Mrs. Izumi (Or in Sagiri’s Case, Izumi-Izumi?). We see all our female options growing and becoming better individuals in their own unique ways. Elf becoming less cliche tsundere than originally anticipated but still maintaining a beautifully adorable charm when she reveals her name to Izumi. Muramasa endeavors to become an amazing writer not just for herself but the world, after having briefly contemplated retiring. Sagiri however beats all them out in her spectacular growth from not needing the microphone, to eventually interacting with others to finally being able to open her window and acknowledge the group without a mask on her face.

The show has the crew relaxing post-novel writing contest at an island resort, sans Sagiri because y’know, the super anti-social thing. However they are originally brought in for a training camp of sorts, with Elf’s older brother Chris chaperoning this little adventure. Sagiri’s only cost for allowing the girls to borrow her precious brother author is that Elf and Muramasa will consent to “anything.” But more on that later. Muramasa was brought in to read all of Izumi’s incomplete/unpublished works and a follow up to his battle manga, resulting in her crisis of identity as a writer, only to be resolved when Izumi brings out a 50 page fan letter (written by Muramasa) and giving her the understanding that its ok to have more than ONE dream. Elf manages to do the very cliche tsundere confession of love, informing Izumi of her real name (Emilia Emily) and that when he calls her that, he damn well better be proposing to her in that spot where her father proposed to her mother (not that she loves him or anything…baka…). He then subsequently calls her Emily first thing the next morning much to her adorable reacting.

Beyond that development is the very fact that this damn show is in and of itself a meme. Further beyond that it’s self-aware and will likely be sending adorable little sister terminators to murder us all soon enough. First off is a hilarious moment where Kirito from SAO is brought up and calls out his signature Starburst Stream and someone clearly makes a funny because the voice is very different from normal and yet the real voice actor is there. Another being the fact that they actually have the Oreimo cast make a damn good cameo where they just show up all happy and having people really lose their shit about this as its apparently an adaptation of the official epilogue that confirms that Love Can Bloom.

“A momentary chance encounter”

Finally and most hilarious to me is the common saying on r/anime “the doujins are writing themselves” referring to anime doing all the work of creating porn short of the actual sex. Well, guess what series got its own doujin! So let me break down some of the levels of meta here (please note I made sure to use separate terms for the erotic art vs show vs doujin). We’ve got this fan erotic doujin in the show (Eromanga Sensei itself) about a show that is about an erotic novelist and his erotic animator sister (Eromanga Sensei herself). But we must go more meta! So this erotic novelist made this story upon his own relationship, so essentially what he has in his hands is someone animating the “encounter” between his sister and himself, which is of course something his sister wants to read. Upon reading it, the sister decides “I can make this” and goes about designing her own doujin based on the work that her brother and her had created. So to summarize that confusion, we have the doujin made by Sagiri which was reactionary to the fan doujin that was made in reaction to the novel that Izumi had written which is in a show that we’re all watching (Eromanga Sensei itself).

So confusion aside, I really enjoyed this show and everything it brought to the table. The art was phenomenal to watch, with it being probably one of my favorite animations yet. Musically, the show is catchy and will have you dancing to it like an idiot while doing laundry…which I totally don’t do. Moving on, like I said, the plot and development were great because they were subtle yet noticeable. We have Sagiri especially growing more and more out of her shell and the amazing thing was they didn’t beat us over the head with it. There was no “OMFG I’m So proud of you Sagiri for not needing the headset anymore!” But a happy and natural reaction to someone becoming more and more personable and interactive. All in all, I’m not a huge fan of the apparent Imoto Cinematic Universe thing that is starting to sprout up but I do respect Eromanga Sensei as an entertaining story that was well done and I’m hoping for more. Anyway, let me know what you think and leave a like or a comment before you have to explain anatomy to your little sister…